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Forum:Knoxx's Gold - It looks like it does increase rarity (maybe)
I decided to see if I could work out if using Knoxx's Gold to kill Knoxx made any any difference to the rarity of items found in the Armory. I didn't expect it would, but it may just be possible that it does! First a few disclaimers - I'm NOT a mathematician, let alone a statistician. I only did 10 runs for each condition, and that's probably too small a sample size for reliability, but each run took me several hours to do, as I had to record and spreadsheet every item found by level, rarity and cost (cost turned out to be meaningless, but I didn't know that when I started). I recorded every item, not just weapons, but unfortunately I didn't think to to code whether each item was a weapon, class mod, grenade mod, or shield. This has made analysis harder than it should have been. Also, I missed 3 chests, which I didn't know were there until halfway through the experiment. I don't think this invalidates the results, as I checked them (but didn't record them) in subsequent runs, and they were not unusual in contents. My method: In the Super-Marcus Sweep mission, I did 10 runs where I transitioned into the Armory with Knoxx's Gold equipped and in hand. I then made sure the first shot that hit Knoxx was from the KG, then switched to other weapons for most of the fight. I made sure that the final killing shot was also with KG. I kept KG equipped and in hand while I did the glitch and ransacked the Armory. I don't know if any of these conditions are necessary, but I wanted to give it as good a chance as possible of getting a result. In the other 10 runs I got rid of KG entirely - it wasn't even in my inventory, as I wasn't sure whether just having it in the inventory might make a difference. I just killed him, and then went to do the ransack of the Armory. Just in case there might be an effect from the order in which I did the runs, I did them as 4 sets of 5 runs: first I did 5 runs with KG, then 10 runs without KG, then 5 more runs with KG. So - on to the results: In the runs without KG I found 3072 items in total - here's a table by level of items found, and another of items by rarity. In the runs with KG I found 3161 items in total - again, here's a table by level of items found, and another of items by rarity. As you can see there is a noticeable increase of Orange items when KG was used to kill Knoxx: 3.8% of all items as opposed to 2.8%. In addition, I found 4 Cyan items as opposed to zero when not using KG. Whether these results are statistically significant I have no idea, but it's interesting, isn't it? Or to put it another way: without KG I found an average of 8.6 Orange items per run; with KG the average was 12 Orange items per run. Here a graph of rarity of items under the two conditions by percentage: I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but it looks to me like the "extra" Orange and Cyan items come at the expense of Green and Purple items. I'm happy to have less Green items - not so happy to have less Purple ones LOL. I've also graphed level of items by percentage: I've no idea whether this is meaningful - it's probably just sample error - but with KG you seem to get slightly less high level items and more level 58's. If this is a real result it's not good news. On the other hand, you appear to get less level 49's (low quality Eridian weapons), which is a good thing. Since I had coded each item by level I was able to do a little filtering to see if the differences remained when I removed level 48 and 49 items (the low-level chests) and level 55 items (which are all class mods: no weapons, grenade mods, or shields). The short answer is: yes! Here's a table of filtered rarity without KG: And another table of filtered rarity with KG: And a graph of the percentage under the two conditions: ‎ Again, draw your own conclusions. For completeness: average item price without KG was slightly higher at $ 1,047,777 Vs $1,035,992 with KG ( I only recorded cost to the nearest $10,000 - I'm OCD, but I'm not that OCD). Average level was essentially identical: 55.40 for both conditions. For the spreadsheet I coded white rarity as "1", green as "2", blue as "3", purple as "4", orange as "5", and cyan as "6", which let me work out average rarity for all items found. Without KG average rarity was 2.73; with KG it was 2.76. I didn't try to split orange into light and dark, as this seems to be a continuum rather than a either/or thing, and anyway, the sample size was too small. If anyone wants to do more runs to add to the data, that would be great. Don't bother recording cost though - it's pointless - just record each item by level and rarity; if you want to code it by item type, that's up to you, but it will make it a much slower process. A second monitor for your spreadsheet helps. Make sure that you follow the exact methodology regarding killing Knoxx that I used, or else the results won't be comparable. Also, all my runs were done during Super-Marcus Sweep; make sure that your runs are too, as the level and rarity of weapons changes in the the other Armory missions. The three chests I didn't record are the ones that you get to by going across across the drawbridge, and down the elevator, (they are under the platform). You probably shouldn't record these ones either if we want the data to be consistent. You can safely access the chests behind the octagonal room: don't go through the octagonal room (or you'll set off the Steal Loot task); instead access them via the drawbridge and lift from the top floor and come back the same way. Don't forget that there are two red chests on top of the big containers on the top floor. If we have any statisticians on the Wikia who could do some analysis of my data to determine if the differences I've found are statistically significant I can supply the raw data as an Excel spreadsheet. I'm off now to get my life back. Outbackyak 07:45, June 29, 2010 (UTC) I will do this tonight with the knoxx to try and get a pearl. But I have a few questions. Did you have a scavenger MOD on? Were the Pearls only in crimson lance chests? If so It will be faster for me to just run in and open them instead of every chest. Also were you doing this solo, splitscreen or online? and on what playthrough? Thanks.Eatingleg4peanut 12:07, June 29, 2010 (UTC) @ Eatingleg4peanut: I am playing as Roland, so no scavenger mod, and I'm Level 61 on playthrough 2. The pearlescents were in red chests as well as Crimson Lance chests (if I recall - I'm certain that some were in Crimson Lance chests, and I'm pretty sure that at least one was in a red chest). I wouldn't worry too much about cutting down your time - you might miss other good stuff if you hurry, and it really doesn't take that long to open every chest; it takes much longer getting there and killing Knoxx than it does to loot the Armory thoroughly. You can open a bunch of adjacent chests and then just scan them quickly - is there anything purple, orange, or cyan in them? if so have a quick look at each of them and see if it's worth taking, ignore everything else, and move on to the next group of chests. All up it shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes to loot the Armory (i'm assuming you only want good gear, and that you aren't just grabbing stuff to sell - whats the point? Money isn't an issue in Borderlands by this stage). If you really must cut down your time the best way would be - don't bother opening white chests (they are almost all crap weapons - you'll get the occasional orange, but it will only be level 56 or 57) and in the 9 rooms you access by the movable elevator only open the Crimson Lance chests, and only then if there are two Lance chests in one room. One of those chests will be a high level chest, but all the others will be capped at level 48 (there are a total of 3 high level Crimson Lance chests in the 9 rooms). Also ignore all the chests on the very top level - they are all capped at 48 as well. However, It should be noted that one of the pearlescents I got was a level 48 Avenger, and it was in one of the Crimson Lance chests on the top floor, so if you just want to be able to say "I found a pearlescent" it might be worth opening the low level chests too. The other 3 were level 60 or 61 - one Undertaker, and two Avengers. And don't get your hopes too high - I did 20 runs, and only found 4 pearlescents. I'd also done at least 10 earlier runs, and I didn't find a single pearlescent in those runs. They are very rare indeed. Outbackyak 13:59, June 29, 2010 (UTC) : 4 Pearlescents in 20 runs is actually quite good. Fantastic even. I've probably made over 200 Famory runs, some with/without KG, some with/without FRI mods, some with/without teams, and have never found a Pearlescent there. -- MeMadeIt 16:52, June 29, 2010 (UTC) : I'm in the same boat, I've been to the armory so many times that I can't stand going there anymore, its to boring and I've actually fallen asleep doing it. I still farm craw because I get rarer drops that I've seen nowhere else but still no pearls. But I'm going to try this tonight. And it takes alot longer (imo) to open all the chests than kill the pushover knoxx. I'm to the point now that I think Pearls don't exists and its a big conspiracy that the whole world is in on.Eatingleg4peanut 19:29, June 29, 2010 (UTC) When you're doing the runs with KG, I get that you're hitting Knoxx with KG for the first and last shot, but are you equipping the dropped KG from the current run after he dies, or just using the same one you used to kill him when you loot the armory. Just wondering because I'll try this since you seemed to get LOTS of pearlescents for 10 KG runs. - Uberorb This thread is intriguing. Even given that you were very lucky on the cyans, this motivates me enough to get back on WillowTree and reset this quest and give it a few runs to see how my results in terms of oranges compare. For the record, I for one have found far more pearlescents/cyans in the farmory than from Crawmerax. I found an Two Avengers (one quite bad, one very good), three Undertakers (one elemental) from the former; by comparison, I found one crappy Omega shield and a thumper Tsunami off Craw. However, the latter does seem to have given most of my best purples. 03:54, June 30, 2010 (UTC) @MeMadeIt: Yeah, you are right 4 Pearlescents is a fantastic result. I was very surprised to get that many, or indeed any at all. Just wish they were a Bessie or a Tsunami instead, as I don't really think that the Avenger is a particularly useful weapon, and I'm not skilled up in Launchers, so the Undertaker isn't that useful to me either. A good Ironclad would be nice too! @Uberorb: I kept the same KG equipped for the farming that I had used to kill Knoxx. I picked up the other KG but did not equip it; this is probably an error in experimental design on my part, since it is possible that having the extra KGs in my inventory could affect item rarity. I doubt if it would make rarity worse, but might it make rarity better? Who knows? I didn't pick up the KGs in the runs where I didn't kill Knoxx with a KG, of course, as that would have totally invalidated the experiment. Outbackyak 05:17, June 30, 2010 (UTC) You must be VERY lucky. I did 12 Armory runs following what you did plus my in my inventory, 48/66 of my backpack spaces were filled with Knoxx's Gold. I Didn't get any pearlescents, but I found 8 pretty good mongols. I didn't really find any other good weapons. It almost seemed like I got MORE white rarity guns and less oranges + a ton of mongols. I'll keep trying though. - Uberorb That’s how it is nearly every time a farm the armory. I think there is definitely something that effects the rarity of the loot but I don’t think any of us know. Back when I was first farming the chests in the armory it had amazing dark orange weapons in a lot of the cases and very high value purples, and because of it I have all I could ask for as far as Legendaries (still no pearls though). But now I go and I see A LOT of white and green guns, and before I hardly saw a white gun. Nearly every Crimson Lance chest has crap eridians or a volcano (both of which make my eye twitch when I see them now) I’m lucky if I get 1 weapon in the run that is worth picking up. And yet sometimes if I go there It’ll it will have some decent weapons (I classify decent as in a lot of weapons with a value over 5mil, not just gold’s) but mostly it’s a crap run. I think that you can tell how a run will go by the first 5 chests you open, if the first five are a lot of white and green I think the whole run will be a bust. There must be something I’m doing that is effecting the quality of weapons in a run as its not just a few chests there is a drastic difference in the 2 runs which I refer to as the “bust” or “boss” runs. But I get “bust” runs so often now that I barely ever do a armory run, I just farm craw.Eatingleg4peanut 13:19, July 2, 2010 (UTC) : @Uberorb: Yes, I think you are right, and my results on pearlescents was just luck. I've done at least 10 runs since with KG equipped (without recording the items), and I've not got a single cyan item. When they are so rare in the first place it makes it really hard to know if the KG makes a real difference or not. I think that the results on Orange items may be a little more robust, but as I said in my main post, I'm no statistician: my results may be completely due to chance. Without someone who knows statistics to analyse my data there is no way of knowing. The way I figure it is there is no harm in using KG to kill Knoxx, and it may help, so I'll go on doing it that way, but I wouldn't want anyone to think that using KG is going to make cyans and high quality oranges certain; it's anything but. : @Eatingleg4peanut: I agree that the quality of loot is very variable between runs, though I don't think it is so much a mattter of more or less whites and greens, so much as it is whether the purple and orange items are also high level and high quality. Sometimes it seems like most of the purples & oranges are level 48, 57 & 58; sometimes they are mainly 59,60 & 61. And sometimes the high level items are still crap - level 61 Volcanoes with a x1 zoom for example. I generally figure that if I can get one item out a run that is actually an improvement on what I've got in my inventory already I'm doing well. Still looking for a really good purple 2 shot shock revolver with a good zoom; still looking for any Unforgiven with the masher accessory (preferably two shot, must have zoom); still looking for a good purple X4 corrosive SMG with a decent zoom; etc, etc, etc. Every second orange seems to be one of the more useless shotguns: blast Bulldogs and x 1 corrosive Hammers, or the dumbest gun of all time, the totally upointless Hydra. Even now I've got my shotgun proficiency up to 50 (thankyou Mr Motorhead!), the only one I ever use is the Maliwan Crux, and even then only for the giggles of taking out Defenders with two shots up close. I guess I'm not really a shotgun sort of player. Love my revolvers and SMGs, and the blast Ogre is very nice on anything made of flesh, and pretty good on badass devastators (damn, I want a Serpens! The Defiler works well too, as does my Steel Anarchy, but I reckon a good Serpens would be the ducks nuts for devastators). Outbackyak 16:04, July 2, 2010 (UTC)